The death of Nelson Mandela has provoked a weird mix of reactions. But few have been weirder that former Sen. Rick Santorum using the moment to compare Mandela's fight against the racist government of South Africa to the Republican campaign against Obamacare.

Santorum was speaking to Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, in part to promote the Christmas movie from his Christian movie studio. ("War on Christmas" capitalism is the new hobby of failed national canadidates, it seems.) The interview was being recorded shortly after the news of Mandela's death broke, prompting O'Reilly to raise the topic with Santorum.

"He was a communist, this man," O'Reilly said. "He was a communist, all right? But he was a great man." The lesson for O'Reilly was that perhaps "ideology has to really leave the building next year" for the Republican Party, putting respectful disagreement ahead of virulent rhetoric.

Which is when Santorum made his pivot.

Well, Nelson Mandela stood up against a great injustice and was willing to pay a huge price for that and that's the reason he is mourned today, because of that struggle that he performed. But you are right. What he was advocating for was not necessarily the right answer, but he was fighting against some great injustice.

And I would make the argument that we have a great injustice going on right now in this countrywith an ever-increasing size of government that is taking over and controlling people's lives. And Obamacare is front-and-center in that. I agree with your point earlier, which is that the center focus of the 2014 election must be Obamacare and all of its aspects.

Emphasis added.

The BBC put together an overview of what life was like for black people (or, perhaps: "blah people") under the racist apartheid system that relegated them to nearly sub-human status. It was not similar to Obamacare or the expansion of government in its injustice.

Nor that government is expanding. The November jobs report, released Friday morning, shows further losses in federal government employment. As of March, 740,000 government jobs had been lost since the beginning of the recession.

"We are in a party that — believe it or not — is the big tent party in America," Santorum said when first introduced. "We are the ones that have a lot of diversity in our party as to the beliefs." Such as the belief that Obamacare should be included in the same breath with Nelson Mandela's struggle for justice, it seems.